Postings by Misha (R.I.P. 4/29/13)'s Family

Awesome, thanks everyone, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to make things worse somehow by getting in the middle of it to get her out of there...

Our park does have a smaller dog section, but she's right on the cusp of the weight limit for it and she doesn't really like to play with smaller dogs anyways. She'll run around and say Hi to all of them, but then she's bored. XD

Akitas are in a breed group know for being highly intelligent, prone to not listening when there are distractions, having a high prey drive, and running off to have their own adventures. They can be very very difficult. XD

Arya is part Shiba, also in that category, and I absolutely cannot trust her off leash ever. We still practice recall all the time, but I know it will never be 100%, especially when there are distractions. Which is not to say you shouldn't work on recall, because it's still super important. You'll just have to practice in small increments of difficulty, gradually adding distractions, and using a long lead when you get to trying it outside. It might be a good idea to get a professional trainer's input.

But you still gotta take steps to make sure she doesn't get loose to begin with. This may mean putting up a gate in your house to keep her from bolting out the door, or keeping her on leash in the car and making sure you have a tight hold on the leash before opening any doors.

A handful of times at the dog park, Arya ends up attracting huskies who REALLY want to play, but always play a bit too rough for her tastes. When it gets to be too much and she feels like she's being pushed around and not having fun, she'll roll on her back, belly up. Sometimes they get it and stop and it's all chill again, but sometimes they can be kind of incessant and ignore the cues...

As it's territorial behavior, keep an eye out for anything that may be activating those instincts, such as something/someone new in the house. Having him altered may or may not fix the problem on it's own, it works a lot of the time but it depends on on the dog. Make sure you have an enzymatic cleaner to get rid of any trace of his urine on the places he goes.

I think constant supervision is really your best bet for now, so you can watch for signals that he is about to go. As soon as you suspect he is going to go, or see him start, try to get him outside. If you miss it it's too late to do any kind of correcting. It probably goes without saying, but there's no point trying to punish him for it. Crate him when nobody is able to watch him.

This isn't about Arya, but some dogs we go by when we're out on our walks.

There's this one house that has like... 6 or more beagles in a fenced area. When we go by, the start barking up a storm, running along the fence, etc etc etc.

But I've noticed that there's this one dog, whenever it gets too close to the fence like all of the other dogs, another one of the beagles whips around and starts barking/growling at it, nipping it's neck, pushing down on the other dog's back with it's paw... It looks really aggressive, and the other one looks so scared it just shuts down and tries not to move.

I'm curious, any insight as to what's going on here?? It's only those two dogs that look like they don't get along.

Sorry this is delayed... it can take a lot of time to win over a Shiba. If not rigorously socialized, they often become very suspicious of strangers. Their assumption is that you are up to no good. You gotta take it easy with a Shiba and wait for them to come to you. Tossing treats towards it from afar is good, since many are food motivated, and then you kind of just be patient. This could take hours... or it could never happen, depending on how much the Shiba has been worked with.

It takes Arya about a half hour to an hour to warm up to people, but she's a mix.

Maybe training that focuses on her maintaining attention on people would help...? For example... work on her responding to her name, give her a treat every time she focuses on you when you say her name, and work up to greater and greater distraction (particularly around food), so that if she's visiting and a patient says her name it will grab her attention.

Do you have a spare room where you could put the litter box at the back of the room? Then you could put a chain on the door, or get a gate with a cat door in it (provided you could find one big enough to fit your cat) and that Kennedy could probably fit his head in but wouldn't be able to reach the litter box by a long shot.

Alongside this... you may also consider taking your kitty into the vet. If only one of them is obese, there might be something medical going on.